What the heck is a “Sooner”?
To uncover the origins of this Oklahoma appellation, we traveled to the front page of Yahoo! and typed “what is a sooner” (using the quotation marks) into the Yahoo! search box. Soon enough, we had an answer. Here’s what we learned… In the 1800s before Oklahoma was a state, it was officially designated Indian Territory and was settled by the Cherokee, Choctaw, Creek, Chickasaw, and Seminole tribes who had been forced to give up their lands and move west. Giving in to pressure from eager expansionists, the U.S. government opened up 2 million acres of the land to homesteaders in 1889. To claim a lot of land, prospective settlers had to participate in a land run. They lined up and waited for the blast of a shotgun to signal the beginning of the run, at which point they would race eagerly to claim a homestead. A “Sooner” was someone who snuck pas
